Shut Up and Say Yes
by xXRottWeilerXx
Summary: Ryoma cursed his luck. Really, it wasn't fair. All he asked was a nice day, so that he could propose to Sakuno like a normal person. Was that too much to ask for? /Sequel of: Replay/


**A/N: I know, I've been missing in action for almost a month now. I'm so sorry, I've been so busy, with my studies and whatnot. I'm also kind of short of ideas how to update my stories. The idea is actually there, in my head, but I can't seem to piece the plots together. So, instead of giving ya guys plot-less stories, I'll try and recuperate and while I'm at that, I decided to install a new oneshot. A sequel to 'Replay'. I think the title says it all, but it won't hurt to read right?**

**Enjoy!**

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><p><strong>Shut Up and Say Yes.<strong>

Ryoma couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe this was happening to him. Why, all of a sudden his luck turned so rotten these past few days. His first thought was that it had to be something his perverted Oyaji did in his past life. He could feel it in his bones the moment Nanjiroh gave Ryoma the keys to his red trusty truck all-too willingly. If not, he wouldn't be cursing obscenities to his absent father under his breath while he watched his girlfriend mumbling some things in mechanic lingo while she took a look at the engine of Nanjiroh's vintage truck. Nanjiroh's damned fifteen-year old truck.

With a sigh, Ryoma admitted he was out of his mind the moment those keys jiggled suspiciously when Nanjiroh had placed them on his palm.

"Damn old man. Damn old car." He growled again when he lowered the brim of his cap, the summer sun happily shooting invisible hot lasers towards him. He added "Damn sun," for good measure.

His silent brooding stopped when he heard Sakuno suddenly laugh oh so sweetly from under the hood. Her head peeked out from under the sheet of metal to smile at him, her cheeks flushed and strands of auburn hair clinging to her temples and curled around her throat. As always, he swallowed thickly at how his girlfriend could look so lovely even in the hot sun, an iron wrench in her hand. The smile widened when Sakuno heard Ryoma mutter "Damn sun," again.

"Why are you in a bad mood today?" She finally asked, the faulty engine forgotten for a moment.

Ryoma shifted his weight onto his left leg and leaned against the driver's door.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this."

Clueless, Sakuno blinked. "Like what?"

She heard Ryoma letting out a heavy sigh.

"I was supposed to bring you to Karuizawa, not get you stranded here with me in the middle of nowhere. In the middle of summer."

Sakuno laughed again and resumed working on the engine. It wasn't even noon yet, but it was hot. And in Ryoma's perspective, watching Sakuno in that yellow summer dress, which clung to her in a way that he was reminded –yet again- that Sakuno had curves fit to be a supermodel if not for her height… he was positive as hell that it was mind-numbing hot.

He watched as Sakuno twisted her hair into a loose bun using a few pencils she found in the dashboard. She noticed him watching and smiled shyly at him before resuming her work on the engine.

Very, _very _hot.

He blamed his dad again for those thoughts. If the perverted being also known as his father (Ryoma still couldn't understand why his mother married Nanjiroh in the first place) hadn't explained to him the wonders of intimacy when Sakuno was there, sitting across from the Samurai Junior during last week's dinner, he wouldn't be as hormonal as he was when he watched his girlfriend bend down to retrieve the wrench that slipped from her small hands.

Scratch that. It was _sizzling _hot.

It wasn't fair to him, Kachiro had a normal father. Even the eccentric Inui also had a normal dad. But him, why did it have to be him?

Nanjiroh had even laughed out loud when Rinko had spilled the beans when the perverted Oyaji found Sakuno's number in Ryoma's phone (without even asking for his son's permission). The old man had really crossed the line when he laughed out even harder when he mentioned that his idiotic, hormone-less son managed to date Sakuno. He had beaten up Nanjiroh and even managed to get Nanjiroh to actually believe his son had a one-of-a-kind woman for a girlfriend.

God help him, but he hated his luck.

"Ne, Ryoma-kun. Please don't be that hard on your dad. I'm sure Nanjiroh-san didn't mean for this to happen. Besides, we're not really in the middle of nowhere."

Ryoma lifted his head from the green grass beneath them to look at Sakuno incredulously. What did she mean by 'Nanjiroh-san didn't mean for this to happen'? She was out of her mind, really.

Sakuno laughed again at the funny look Ryoma directed at her.

Ryoma's expression softened at the way her nose crinkled when she laughed.

It wasn't because of the fact that they were stranded in someplace nearby the Karuizawa resort that riled him up. Well, it was because of _that_ too. But seeing his girlfriend whom he dated for almost a year, his sweet girlfriend with those small hands and bright smile -whom just laughed out at their ridiculous predicament when the truck's engine started coughing and sputtering madly before it came to a complete stop- without even a single trail of malice stepped out to inspect the damage to the engine in the dead of summer, he realized the sole reason he was so royally pissed off was because he didn't want this holiday to turn bad. He wanted this summer to be her best summer, because he wanted to ask her hand in a lifetime where his life didn't involve only tennis, ponta and Karupin anymore. He wanted this summer to be the summer she wouldn't forget, because she seem to forget a lot of things, and he didn't want her to forget how important she was to him. How important she was to him that it took him no hesitation when he decided he wanted her to be with him. To spend that new lifetime with him.

He didn't want her to remember this summer as the summer when she had to work on a faulty engine in a dress she had bought on their first date.

Ryoma felt like whining all of a sudden.

That dress was nice, damn it.

And women shouldn't be laughing when they would have to dirty their hands on something greasy while wearing a nice dress.

He hated his dad with a passion, no matter how Sakuno seem so fond of that good-for-nothing Oyaji.

Ryoma pushed himself to stand upright, and walked towards Sakuno. He almost sighed when he saw her hands, already smeared with grease. She started when she felt him dump his cap and fix it backwards on her head to prevent her front bangs from hindering her work. A blush coloured her cheeks, and she smiled up at him.

"Thank you, Ryoma-kun."

Surprisingly, he minutely smiled back. "It's Ryoma, baka."

She nodded and turned back towards the radiator she was fixing. "It's all finished, Ryoma. Um… Can you do me a favour and fire up the ignition? It should be okay now."

With a nod, the tennis player did as instructed, and well enough, the truck sputtered to life. Ryoma could only smirk, satisfied as he heard the engine rumble. When he saw the beaming smile from Sakuno, he couldn't help but feel proud of her.

"Good job Sakuno."

For a while, Sakuno's face instantly turned clueless, before she smiled again, a nice shade of pink coloring her cheeks.

"I'm glad, Ryoma-ku… I mean, Ryoma."

His smirk widened when she turned around to hide her growing blush.

"You know, you should wash your hands. There should be some soap in your bag, right?"

Sakuno replied with a meek nod, still not looking at him as she hurried to the backseat. Ryoma snatched her bag before she got to it. She blinked at him owlishly. Ryoma sighed dejectedly when he pulled the zipper of her travel bag.

"Wait a minute there. Your hands are greasy, you're gonna ruin-"

His words stopped and all thoughts flew from his head when Ryoma looked down to a pile of laced underwear beneath the opening of the zipper. He muttered an apology before he reached for his bag instead and pulled out a small towel and a bottle of body wash.

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><p>Ryoma yawned as he waited for Sakuno, the windows rolled down and the hood of the truck already let down. The engine was still left running when she came back, her hands all clean. Miraculously, her yellow dress was spotless.<p>

"Sorry for waiting, Ryoma."

He waved her apology and waited for her to buckle her seatbelt before they resumed towards the resort. Ryoma couldn't help but smirk in satisfaction when the truck actually moved… before it stopped again.

"What the-"

Sakuno stifled a laughter when she pointed towards the fuel meter.

"The tank's empty, Ryoma."

Grudgingly, Ryoma took out his cell phone to dial a number. Sakuno listened as her boyfriend give instructions to a nearby gas station worker about their whereabouts. After a few minutes on the phone, Ryoma hung up. He turned towards Sakuno as he unbuckled his seatbelt.

"I'll wait for them outside-"

His words were cut off once again when the sky rumbled and in a blink of an eye, rain started pouring down. Sakuno could see Ryoma close his eyes and his jaw tighten at the sudden change of weather, and she tried to stifle down a giggle. Ryoma seemed easy to rile up nowadays, and it was always funny to watch the play of expressions on his face.

Ryoma felt like giving up and with a dejected sigh, he leaned tiredly into the seat. Sakuno finally giggled when he growled 'damn it all' under his breath, his eyes closed. He pulled Sakuno closer to his side and let his face rest against the nook of her neck.

"Sorry." He said, his voice silent and monotonous.

Ryoma's heart swelled up when he felt Sakuno sigh and relax against him.

"It's okay, Ryoma."

Ryoma lifted his head to look at her in the eyes. "It's not."

Sakuno cupped his face with her hands and brought his face nearer. A smile decorated her face.

"It is, Ryoma. We can wait till the rain stops. Ne?"

He lifted a hand to cover hers and turned his head to plant a kiss on her palm. A small smile stretched his lips when he remembered she used his soap to wash her hands. "You hand smells like me."

A soft laugh escaped her lips. "I know, and I like it."

The ridiculous confession had his smile widen a bit. "Why do you like it?"

A blush colored her cheeks when she admitted. "B-Because I like you."

His face turned serious when he looked into her eyes. "Why do you like me?"

Her blush deepened.

"B-Because… Ryoma-kun is such a determined person, I like that about you. You do what you know is right, and you're so confident in life and I really like you because of that. You're not someone else, because you're yourself when you play on the courts and I… I really like it that you see me as myself. You always hear me out even when I stutter a lot… and I like it that you let me walk next to you. Ryoma-kun has always been important to me and will always be precious to me."

Ryoma swallowed.

"I love you, Ryoma-kun."

He had heard confessions before, a lot of times.

He had heard girls say they love him.

He had read all sorts of confessions written in the letters he received in school, he could even predict the contents of a love letter the moment he sees it.

They admired him, and somehow he grew sick of it. Because they repeat the same things.

"You're cool, you're handsome, you're clever, I love you."

He somehow felt sick of those confessions.

But Sakuno was different. Sure, she might have liked him for chasing off Sasabe and his minions in the first place, but she was different from other girls.

She didn't greet him in the mornings with the enthusiasm of a self-proclaimed fangirl. She never threw herself at him, and preferred to cheer him on the side lines silently. And that was what drew him to her in the first place.

And he had never heard her confess to him.

Suddenly the rain pelting annoyingly against the front screen didn't matter to him at all.

All that mattered was that he loved her too. And this was the best confession he had heard, and it would always be second to none.

She had averted her eyes when she said those words, the blush on her cheeks deepening.

"Sakuno."

"Y-Yes?"

Still, she wasn't looking at him.

"Marry me."

Her head snapped up, her eyes blinked owlishly at him.

He didn't care how they did it in romance novels or movies, but he wanted her to know.

He wanted her, as a companion.

And here she was, still blinking and the blush coming to color her cheeks again. Then she started sputtering nonsense.

"Bu-Bu-But Ryo-Ryoma-kun… I-I'm clumsy and what will happen i-if I-"

A smirk appeared on his lips as he watched her blabber in Japanese, and then broken English, and suddenly she spoke French, and some mixed chinese, before she settled on japanese again.

"I-I mean… Ryo-Ryoma-kun… and m-me? Th-Then will I b-be Ry-Ryuzaki S-Saku-Sakuno or Echizen or… or…"

He sighed when she couldn't seem to stop herself. "Just say yes."

Sakuno stopped suddenly to look at him, her lips forming a small 'o' as she tried to get what he was saying.

"Eh?"

"Just shut up and say yes already."

Her blush deepened again when he leaned in for a kiss. Her eyes instantly dropped to his lips, nearly going cross at the close proximity.

"W-What?"

"Marry me."

Sakuno could feel his lips brushing against hers as he said those words. Suddenly her mind cleared and she was able to whisper a yes just before Ryoma kissed her.

Ryoma had once thought that it was plain ridiculous if a man would declare himself lucky if a woman said yes to his proposal, and he wouldn't believe if a person would say he or she was the happiest person on earth. But when he felt Sakuno lean towards the kiss and the way her small hands curled against his chest, it was impossible to not say that Sakuno saying yes to his proposal was all he needed to feel like the luckiest man in the whole universe.

"Will you marry me?" He said again, his voice husky as they broke the kiss.

"Of course."

Ryoma leaned in for another kiss when he suddenly elbowed the honk. Sakuno laughed and he watched her laugh, just content seeing her happy by the simplest things in life.

He was definitely lucky, to have Sakuno.

And he was going to marry her and they'll build a family of their own.

After the gas tank is refilled, that is.

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><p><strong>Yay! Another oneshot finished! ^_^<strong>

**I hope you like this one, and I'm thinking of doing a sequel for 'Truly, Madly, Totally' but I don't really know exactly where to start. Please feel free to review, and tell me if you'd like a sequel for my other oneshots, I would be glad to try and write 'em. Just hope that I'm not too lazy to update my other stories.**

**Hugs and kisses! **


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